The Economist on iPad

The economic news these days may be grim, but there's one magazine whose excellent writing can be relied on to make it less painful reading: The Economist. My main complaint with this weekly is that it's printed on pretty flimsy stuff, and its ink is liable to smear—not to mention the guilt-inducing amount of paper I consume reading it. Sure, there's a Kindle version, but I'm in the Nook camp, and there's no Nook version. There's a good online version, but I can't bear the idea of reading that much text on my laptop. I was pleased, therefore, that the Economist recently made the big digital step forward by releasing iPhone and iPad apps. I tried out The Economist on iPad (free to download, but you have to pay for content). Initually, it sounded like a shoe-in for our best iPad apps story. In testing however, while I was impressed with the reading experience, the app itself proved to be a bit buggy.

The Economist, for those who don't know it, is a British glossy weekly newspaper in magazine format. Despite the name, it's not just about economics; instead it aims "to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which pushes forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress." It doesn't endorse any political viewpoint, though it does tend to favor globalism and fiscally conservative capitalism, with a Libertarian bent toward social issues. The magazine's compact writing assumes readers are already well informed and educated and delivers a surprising amount of information in each issue. Time Magazine feels like Weekly Reader, in comparison.

Stress-Testing the Economist
Downloading the iPad app is free—the actual content is not. Full digital access is included if you're already a print subscriber. If not, a digital subscription is $29 for a quarter or $110 for a year, and includes access to everything on The Economist's website, including back issues to 1997—that's a pretty good deal. Print subscription costs vary by region, but in the U.S. it's about double the digital cost. You can also buy single issues, but here there's no comparable price break. Digital issues sell for the same $5.99 as print issues, which seems pricey.

Still, the magazine looks very good on the iPad. The layout is good, and the images are impressively sharp. One definite advantage over the print version is the resizable text; the regular Economist's type can be hard on the eyes after a while—on the iPad it's easy to resize up to a reasonably large font. It takes a slow, steady stroke to get the text to resize correctly, but it worked well enough.

There's not much extra here, though—no snazzy iBonuses. Sadly, the one extra I was really looking forward to, downloadable audio versions of the magazine, simply would not download in my testing. The problem persisted for the several days, in an area with strong Wi-Fi signal—even after updating to iOS 4.2. The online Help and the Help within the app (which is confusingly filed under "About" in settings) were no help, either. I did notice one disconcerting Q/A, however, stating that there was a known bug with the iPhone version of the app, such that if you started it up in an area with a weak Wi-Fi signal, it could become corrupted and need to be deleted and redownloaded.

One other minor bug—according to the in-app Help, you're supposed to be able to tweak how much text and audio the app stores locally via the storage. I thought this might help with my inability to download audio, so I went looking for it. As far as I can tell, however, it's just not there. There are other instances of the help having been written separately from the app, too—you're referred to buttons by the wrong names, for example. It's disappointing, given how carefully written the magazine itself is.

Mixed Indicators
The Economist on the iPad didn't live up to my high expectations. A few annoying bugs, less than helpful Help, and a single-issue price that would feel like a much better bargain if the audio download worked all contributed to the let down. Still, it's the Economist. On an Ipad. I'm sold—I won't be buying paper copies as long as I can hold onto this testing iPad. But I will be waiting for the update that brings this app up to the level of the content and the platform it runs on.

More iPad App Reviews:
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The iPad: A Dubious Bet For Publishers

The Apple iPad is a major and misunderstood strategy departure for today's most talked-about tech firm. With both the iPod and the iPhone, Apple launched products with value that was high on a standalone basis. External partners clamored to join the party once it got going, but their support was not needed to get the party started. In contrast, the iPad depends critically on buy-in and participation from other businesses for its success. But it's not at all clear that these partners really understand the game they've signed on for.

Apple ( AAPL - news - people ) and Steve Jobs are famous for their standoffish relationships with partners. Whereas Microsoft ( MSFT - news - people ), for example, has a strategy built explicitly around persuading other firms to build on its platform, Apple has historically followed a strategy of standalone value creation--a closed biosphere rather than an open ecosystem.

This obsession with control and integration is often blamed for Apple's defeat in the PC wars. Yet in their admiration of the glory of Apple's resurrection, many observers have overlooked the fact that success in music and telephony this time around has been rooted in the same closed strategy.

It is not Apple that changed its strategy to fit the world; rather, the world changed to fit Apple. More specifically, Apple started pursuing opportunities that required far fewer elements to be combined to create value. Success in the PC world required mastery of too many elements (computers, peripherals, applications, development tools, etc.) targeting too many distinct segments and uses (home, education, business, government, etc.) for any one firm to deliver a complete solution. There, the open platform dominates.

In contrast, success in digital music players required bringing together far fewer elements--the player (iPod), the management software (iTunes) and the music files. And the music files were already widely available, thanks to Napster ( NAPS - news - people ) and Co. (recall that the iTunes Store didn't take off until after the iPod was already a blockbuster success). Here the perfect package wins.

Similarly, to make the iPhone work, the only partners required (outside the highly controlled package that Apple was in charge of) were the telephone operators. And even the operators were willing to play by Apple's strict rules. Recall that early attempts at third-party applications were forcefully rebuffed by Apple, which used successive software updates to disable phones running unauthorized software, turning them into iBricks. Indeed the much-celebrated App Store was more of a reactive concession by Apple to external developers than a proactive strategic move.

In contrast the iPad is fundamentally an enabler of other parties' content. It is no accident that the marketing message has leaned so heavily on the device as reinvigorating newspaper, magazine and e-book publishing. And indeed publishers have flocked to the iPad, creating custom versions of their wares to create and exploit the incredible experience that is possible on the iPad. Thus Time, Wired and Popular Mechanics have all invested in creating truly exceptional offers uniquely for the iPad environment, while traditional book publishers have risked upending their relationship with their biggest distributor, Amazon.com ( AMZN - news - people ).

Seduced by Steve Jobs' siren song that he wants to protect the publishing industry, willfully ignorant of the effect of the 99-cents-per-song model on the music publishing industry, and mesmerized by the unit sales figures for iPods and iPhones, publishers have signed up in droves to create unique iPad offerings. They think the iPad offers them a lifeline, not realizing it is their content that is critical for iPad's success.

So the cash-strapped publishers dig deep into their pockets to invest substantial sums in reengineering their product, adding in-depth videos, interactive graphics, audio interviews and myriad other features that are available only to those readers who can access this premium content (at premium prices) using the iPad.

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iPad Dvd Ripper Rapidshare Hotfile and Fileserve Free Full..

Aneesoft iPad Video Converter v2.4.2.525 | 5.1 Mb

Aneesoft iPad Video Converter is the easiest-to-use and fastest video to iPad converter software for converting videos to watch on Apple iPad. It converts all popular video format to iPad video formats. You can convert AVI to iPad, MOV to iPad, MKV to iPad, MPEG to iPad, FLV to iPad, WMV to iPad, RM to iPad and more
You can also use this iPad Video Converter to edit and merge your original videos. You may crop, trim, the videos, to add special effects on them. Another popular function in the iPad Video Converter is to add watermark on the videos. With support for multi-core processing, multithreading and batch conversion, you can convert multiple files easily, quickly and with exceptional quality.

Daniusoft DVD Ripper 2.4.0 | 10.3 MB

Daniusoft DVD Ripper, one of the best DVD Ripper software, can not only rip DVD to MPEG, Xvid, AVI, WMV, MP4 and other popular video formats, but also extract background music from the DVD file with stunning speed and amazing quality. In addition, this best DVD Ripper Software offers you numerous ways to customize your DVD videos, watch DVD movies on your iPod, iPhone, iPad, Zune, PSP, Android phone. With Daniusoft best DVD Ripper now and no need to worry about the incompatibility problems again.

4Media iPad to Mac Transfer 3.0.4.0607 | MacOSX | 40 MB

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WinX DVD Ripper Platinum v5.22.0 Final WinALL-BLiZZARD | 9.41 Mb

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iPad iOS 4.2 GM (8C134) | 549.16 MB

installing the 4.2 GM:

you need iTunes 10.1 beta to install 4.2
save your SHSH blobs if you think you?ll want to downgrade to 3.2.2 in the future
?Restore? the iPad with the 4.2 ipsw file

Aiseesoft iPad Converter Suite 5.0.20 Register | 20.03 MB

If you are a super iPad fan, Aiseesoft iPad Converter Suite is definitely your best choice. This software pack integrates three useful software, including Aiseesoft DVD to iPad Converter software (iPad DVD software), iPad Video Converter software, and iPad Transfer software. All these three kinds of software are great assistants to your iPad.

Open DVD Ripper v1.60 build 429 | 8.7 MB
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The Complete Guide To The iPad - 2010

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Everything you need to know about Apple's revolutionary mobile device. Get ready to embrace the iPad with this in-depth guide, packed with 100s of tips and tricks, essential how-to tutorials and must-have apps. Plus key features explained, from getting started and browsing the internet to using contacts and setting up email. This essential guide tells you everything you need to know about the iPad.

Open Blu-ray Ripper 1.50 Build 432 | 6.54 Mb
Open Blu-ray ripper is high-grade Blu-ray ripping and converting software. It gives you the freedom to convert latest Blu-ray movies to a great variety of audio and video formats and enjoy the movies on different devices, such as iPad, iPod, iPhone, AppleTV, PSP, PS3, XBOX360, Zune, Mobile Phone, GPhone, Smart Phone, PMP, Pocket PC, PDA, etc. Its new cutting-edge HST? tech makes the conversion extraordinarily fast, 800% faster than ever. With Open Blu-ray ripper, you can enjoy the converted Blu-ray movies anytime anywhere!

iOS 4.2 Beta 1 Restore (iPad) | 513 MB

Pad1,1_4.2_8C5091e_Restore.ipsw

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The iPad May Not Be The Great Saviour Of Newspapers

{"s" : "aapl,erts","k" : "a00,a50,b00,b60,c10,g00,h00,l10,p20,t10,v00","o" : "","j" : ""} Dan Sabbagh, On Monday November 29, 2010, 6:49 am EST

George Orwell once made a very important comparison between the rival merits of books and cigarettes, in an effort to prove that the cost of reading was not much greater than the cost of a few fags.

Not much has changed since, judging by the amount of gold coins the machine requires – although Orwell’s point was that reading was a pretty inexpensive business if you put your mind to it.

It was just, unfortunately, that people didn’t because reading was “a less exciting pastime than going to the dogs, the pictures or the pub”.

Move forward in time to the era of the iPad and the Kindle, starting with the slim Amazonian device first. Kindles, of course, are designed for the reading of ebooks, and sometimes there is somebody on the train armed with one. But give people something else to do on their Kindle, and suddenly there is a whole lot more fun to be had – which is what Electronic Arts (NSDQ:ERTS - News), the games company behind Medal of Honor and other virtual shooting-type activity, found when it released Scrabble on the Kindle earlier this year.

Scrabble was the number one selling app/game/anything on the Kindle when it was launched in the US in September, outselling all the books that week, which EA has since followed with Solitaire (also a No 1) and a bunch of other games. Conceived as a serious device for serious people, it may turn out, as Orwell might have predicted, that Kindle owners rather enjoy playing games too. Who knows where this will end up, but it wouldn’t be surprising if the Kindle ends up being rather more than a mere book reader.

Consider also the iPad. The coming weeks will see umpteen iPad newspaper and magazine launches, as serious brands chase what they believe to be a serious demographic of buyers. On the plus side, the early signs are that there is a meaningful audience to chase. Over at Screen Digest, one of the better research firms, they reckon that Apple (NSDQ:AAPL - News) will sell 1m iPads by the end of the year – and that iPad penetration will reach about 10-11% (6 to 6.5 million) of the British population by 2014, which is about as far as anybody can reasonably forecast.

This is a seductive looking number – as long, that is, as people spend their time using their iPads for reading. It’s well in excess, say, of the combined average daily sale of the upmarket press – just over 2m Monday to Saturday. But the problem is – for those who dare take their iPad out on the way to work – is that an iPad is not newspaper with moving words. Screen Digest, again, reckon that the average owner downloads about 60 apps a year, of which all but six are free. That certainly leaves room to buy an iPad newspaper, but will it leave time to read it when there is all that other stuff to play with?

The problem for anybody wanting to believe that the iPad is a newspaper or magazine replacement is that it is not. It’s a digital device, which means people will get easily distracted and start playing Scrabble, or listening to music or whatever else one can get up to on a crowded carriage.

It’s also still too easy to jump from one news source to another, because digital has fundamentally changed people’s relationship with printed news sources. Once, a newspaper was not just a source of information, but a statement of identity, where most buyers would not dream of picking up a competing title. Now, in a era where identities are altogether more protean, and when any app can disappear from view at a single touch, it is not obvious that people will simply sit down and spend 20 minutes engaged in silent contemplation over a single title. It’s not how the modern mind works.

George Orwell might be disappointed with that, but he long ago recognised the problem. Those in the media business pinning too much hope on the iPad, though, might be in for a bit of a surprise.

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U.S. chip manufacturing in the age of the iPad

Behind the fly-off-the-shelf popularity of products like Apple's iPad and iPhone are hundreds of thousands of manufacturing jobs--mostly overseas. Is it possible to create more of those jobs here in the U.S. to combat chronically high levels of unemployment?

Andy Grove's Stanford class examined the state of manufacturing in the U.S.

(Credit: Intel)

Personal computing is moving rapidly beyond the laptop. And there's no better example than Apple, whose most popular products are now the iPhone and the iPad. The surging demand for anything Apple is causing a seismic shift in chip manufacturing to Asia, the hotbed of new silicon ecosystems. Though companies like Hewlett-Packard and Dell also play a role, they are still primarily Intel-centric PC makers, while Apple is morphing into a maker of smartphones and tablets, which is creating the alternative non-Intel silicon manufacturing ecosystems overseas. Thus the focus on Apple.

So, is there anything a U.S. gadget supplier like Apple can--or should--do to help maintain a chip manufacturing base in the U.S.? Seeking an answer to that question I recently sat in on a Stanford University class taught by Andy Grove, the former Intel chief executive, and talked to Vivek Wadhwa, director of research at the Center for Entrepreneurship and Research Commercialization at Duke University's Pratt School of Engineering.

My premise was pretty simple. The tablet and high-end smartphone are pushing chip manufacturing outside of the U.S. and away from PC chip stalwart Intel, which has always maintained a large manufacturing base here. My question: If all things are more or less equal technologically, is it a feasible business decision to source silicon from companies, when possible, that have manufacturing bases--and create jobs--in the U.S.?

One of the most prominent examples is Micron Technology and its flash memory chip joint venture with Intel, IM Flash Technologies. Micron is a scrappy Boise, Idaho-based chip manufacturer that survived Japanese chipmakers' takeover of the lion's share of the DRAM (Dynamic Random Access Memory) business in the 1980s and is still alive and kicking despite Asia's--primarily South Korea's and Japan's--preeminence in the memory chip business now.

Toshiba, in particular, is emerging as a strong presence in flash memory now. Thanks, increasingly, to Apple. In fact, to date, a sizable chunk of the flash that went into the iPhone and iPad was sourced from Toshiba. Most pointedly, Apple announced publicly in 2009 that it had cut a $500 million deal with Toshiba to supply flash.

And flash is now prominent in the new MacBook Air, which is offered with 64GB, 128GB, or 256GB flash drives. In the popular 11.6-inch MacBook Air, for example, an iFixit teardown reveals a 64GB solid-state drive supplied by Toshiba.

Cost breakdowns by firms such as iSuppli show that the flash memory component of iPads and iPhones, as percentage of a total bill of materials, ranks very high and is--depending on whether it's 16GB or 64GB--sometimes the largest single component in terms of cost.

Is this business that Micron and/or Intel--who manufacture flash at facilities in Lehi, Utah, and Manassas, Va.,--could get a bigger piece of? That's a business decision Apple has to make. But my point is that the opportunity to make that choice could vanish if trends continue.

U.S. manufacturing clusters
Grove's Standford University graduate business class focused in part on "industry clusters," which are described as "a geographic concentration of interconnected businesses, suppliers, and associated institutions focused on a particular field (i.e., Silicon Valley)," in the class handout. And one of the questions for open discussion was, "How do we make Silicon Valley an industry cluster for manufacturing technology?"

I didn't hear any good answers to that question. What I did hear were more needling questions such as, "Can you control what you don't produce? We say, no." Or statements about America's lack of focus on maintaining a manufacturing base, such as, "America is not fighting right now, at least not very hard." And, of course, the usual warnings about major disincentives: the stratospherically high U.S. corporate tax rate--a point Intel's current CEO Paul Otellini is not bashful about making--was cited as second only to Japan's at 40 percent.

The corporate tax rate is an important issue because, when it's globally competitive--that is, low--it draws business to the U.S. naturally, in the spirit of Adam Smith's oft-quoted maxim of the Invisible Hand. The U.S. government can't plan a manufacturing base into existence--capitalism doesn't work that way--but a country can do everything possible to make the conditions favorable.

Grove asserts that the U.S. government should be aggressive on all fronts to keep the international playing field as level as possible. "Is China following WTO (World Trade Organization) rules? Should you be worried about being accused of protectionism?"--Grove asked the class. He was posing questions that seemed to imply that the U.S. needs to do more to help itself.

And product giants like Apple can also do their share by turning to existing U.S. sources. "Yes, let's put pressure on Apple. If Apple bought flash from Intel or Micron, that's a great example," said Duke University's Wadhwa.

But not all manufacturing is created equal. "The vast majority of manufacturing is destructive to the environment. Like paint and toy manufacturing. And if you build more manufacturing plants here like Foxconn--which build Apple's iPhone in China--Americans wouldn't want to do those jobs. It's mindless, grunt work," he said.

Wadhwa continued. "Germany (for example) is all very high-level manufacturing. It's very high-level technology products and they pay very high salaries. It's not grunt work. By all means let's get high-end high-tech manufacturing in the U.S. Flash memory is a good example. Manufacturing the most critical ingredients of solar technology is a good example. And clean-tech manufacturing," he said.

Some manufacturing, surprisingly, is coming back to the U.S. The Stanford class cited cases of "re-shoring" of manufacturing by General Electric, Caterpillar, and Ford. In some cases, unforeseen complications make manufacturing abroad simply impractical. And China's cost of living is rising too, which will work against low-cost manufacturing in that country in the future.

Let's hope that the U.S. remains as hospitable as possible to high-quality high-tech manufacturing jobs and that companies like Apple do their share to source from U.S.-based suppliers when possible.

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$1500 iPads Flying Off Shelves in Brazil

While consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe have had the ability to purchase an iPad for months now, residents of countries in Asia, South America and Eastern Europe have not been nearly as lucky.

For many of these nations, the wait is finally over. In the past ten days, Apple's (News - Alert) highly-popular tablet device has been introduced in Taiwan, Denmark, Portugal, The Czech Republic, Sweden, Poland, Norway, Hungary, Finland and South Korea, according to Cult of Mac. And just today, the iPad went on sale in Brazil.

According to the AFP, consumers in Latin America's biggest market were lined up around the block this morning to have a chance to purchase this year's hottest mobile computing device. The initial demand for the iPad in Brazil is especially impressive considering the country's 100 percent tariff on imported electronic devices. This means that Brazilians who want to purchase Apple's multi-touch tablet will have to shell out anywhere from $970 to $1,530, depending on the device's processing speed and whether or not it is 3G-enabled.

Retail outlets in Brazil were forced to wait for nearly six months to receive iPads because of the tariff laws and concerns over naming rights. As the AFP points out, the word "iPad" in Brazil was registered three years ago as a South Korean-made defibrillator used to resuscitate heart attack patients. Stores were unable to begin selling the tablet until Apple and the manufacturer of the defibrillator, CU Medical Systems, came to an agreement.

In related news, researchers at Business Insider are speculating that Apple is on the precipice of selling its 10 millionth iPad, which is an insane accomplishment considering not many people even knew what a table device was earlier this year. Even with the influx of other competing products in the market, analysts expect the iPad to be the number one electronics gift this holiday season.

Beecher Tuttle is a TMCnet contributor. He has extensive experience writing and editing for print publications and online news websites. He has specialized in a variety of industries, including health care technology, politics and education. To read more of his articles, please visit his columnist page.

Edited by Chris DiMarco

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Prizefight: iPad vs. Galaxy Tab

Will the Samsung Galaxy Tab trample the Apple iPad, or is this Prizefight doomed from the start?

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET)

With the iPad tablet computer, Apple is poised to dominate yet another tech category (remember MP3 players) before the competition has a chance to react. For Apple's devotees, the iPad is nothing less than a slam dunk.

Samsung begs to differ. Its Galaxy Tab tablet is a clear threat to the iPad and a worthy consideration to anyone shopping around for a tablet. The Tab offers a smaller, more convenient size, Adobe Flash support, front and rear cameras, and the fastest growing mobile OS: Google's Android 2.2.

But can the Tab unseat the incumbent Apple iPad as the king of tablets? We're about to find out, as these two touch-screen titans square off in five rounds, and our editors get real about which tablet has the goods in this CNET Prizefight.

The following products are available:

If you have a question or comment for Donald Bell, you can submit it here. However, because our editors and writers receive hundreds of requests, we cannot tell you when you may receive a response.

Donald Bell is CNET's senior editor for portable entertainment, covering everything from tablets to MP3 players. He's also a musician, a hardware hacker, and a collector of vintage audio gadgetry. He appears every week on CNET's Crave video podcast.

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